


Children of the Forest God

by MToddWebster (RembrandtsWife)



Series: Tales of the Forest God [5]
Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Forest God - Fandom
Genre: Animal Transformation, Beating, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Folklore, Gen, Minor Violence, Pagan Gods, Parent-Child Relationship, Public Humiliation, Shapeshifting, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, forest god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21682909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/MToddWebster
Summary: Three children of the Forest God, in three different times and places, seek their true father in the woods.
Relationships: Forest God & his offspring
Series: Tales of the Forest God [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1425484
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	1. Brigenta

**Author's Note:**

> Behold, a new thing: Writing in chapters! Unlike a lot of writers, I don't think I've ever posted a work in chapters or one that wasn't complete. Chapter two is underway and chapter three has a clear plan. 
> 
> Once again thanks to roosebolton and gloriouthorn for encouragement, brainstorming, beta, and just generally putting up with me. They help me to tell the god's tales as truthfully as possible.
> 
> Tags will be added with successive chapters; I don't think there will be anything to warn for down the road.

My name is Brigenta, and my father was the Forest God.

Each year in the autumn, the tribe chooses a maiden and offers her as bride to the Forest God. He is the Lord of the trees, guardian of the beasts, giver of fruit and nut and fungus; they say he appears as as a man with the legs of a deer and antlers upon his head, or if he wishes, as a stag or a man entire. When the night grows longer than the day, she goes into the forest to meet him. Some do not return, and we bury their possessions with honor and mourn them, but again the next year, we offer the god a bride.

Some return, pale and silent. At first, they do not speak; later, they recover, and most marry, but some choose to make a household with another woman as companion instead. They do not tell what happened in the forest, and no one asks.

Some, however, return and never speak again, nor are they ever well. The god is too strong for some, they say. He means us well, but he is too strong. They remain with their kin, living like children all their lives. My mother was one of these, as I will tell. 

But every bride who returns from the forest has this in common: They have all gotten with child by the god.

I was still a babe in arms when the other women knew my mother would never be well enough to tend me. So I was given to a woman still nursing, who still had plenty of milk though her own child was soon to be weaned, and she was the mother I knew, and her husband my father.

I was seven or eight years of age before I learned otherwise. I remember that year it turned cold early, and the offering of the bride was a great doing; perhaps I witnessed it then for the first time. I saw the bride, crowned with leaves and cloaked in a bearskin, and walked with the procession that led her to the edge of the forest, hearing the flutes and drums, seeing the torches waver in the dimming light. I clung to my mother's hand, while my brother Brigan walked ahead with our da. Brigan was a year older than I, but they called us twins, for we had nursed together.

As the bride walked alone into the forest, my mother stooped and spoke in my ear. "Brigenta, do you see her over there, with the fair hair uncovered? She walks with her mother and her aunt."

I saw her, a tall woman, younger than my mother, bare-headed and with her straw-gold hair loose about her shoulders like a child. Two older women walked to either side of her, holding her arms; she herself walked with her chin raised, gazing upward as if she saw nothing about her, only the moon.

"In a past year, she was the bride of the god. She came back to us fertile, but did not speak, ever, and so the child she bore was given to me." My mother smiled at my fearful look and took my face between her hands. "She is your womb-mother, lass, but she does not know you. I am your milk-mother and your ma, and your da is your heart-father, but your true father was the Forest God."

To know this strange truth troubled me for a while, but not for ever. Later I made bold to ask da if it was true, and he said it was, and said he was glad to have a daughter. I asked of my brother, and he said that da had already told him, and that it did not matter; I was fortunate that my milk-brother was ever a true brother and a friend to me.

Nor did anyone in the tribe treat me any differently, now that I knew; of course they had known all along. I was not the first child of the god to be fostered thus, and likely not to be the last. So it ceased to trouble me, and indeed, I mostly forgot about it. It was not important to daily life. Only every year, when another bride went into the forest, I was reminded again, and I wondered about the other children of the god, and about my true father.

It was not long after I had seen my first moon blood and began to be counted among the women that it happened: A bride went into the forest and did not come back. The seers waited for her, returning to the path at the forest edge in the morning and remaining there all day. They waited through the night, her mother and other women of their clan coming to join them. The village was silent and anxious, awaiting the news. For three days and nights they awaited the bride's return before returning to the village. The seers took their omens, and when the moon was past its full, they came out and declared the year's bride dead to the tribe.

My ma cried, and so did I. We went out from our hearth with hair unbound and breasts uncovered and wailed over the bundle of clothing and jewelry, shoes and trinkets that was all we had of our sister, the lost bride. The men drank and the women wailed as the bundle was burned and the seers and elders threw herbs into the fire, and then the cool ashes were raked and gathered into a vessel and it was done.

No one saw where the ashes were scattered, far from the village, near to the forest.

Again I was troubled and could not sleep. No one would speak of what had happened, not my ma or da, not the elders or the seers. Every time I saw one of the seers and spirit speakers, they frowned on me, so gravely that I dared not ask any questions. We sought the god's blessings, but he took away our kinswoman as in payment? I, his daughter, was counted as a blessing, but my womb-mother was still silent and helpless, these many years later, like a child that never grew up. My brother and I remained close, but not even to him could I speak of my trouble.

As the moon waned and waxed again, I made up mind to act. It was nearing close to the Door of Winter, when the dead and other spirits roam freely, but I recklessly thought that might help me. I laid my plans carefully ahead of time, and on the coldest night of that year, I rose in the deep of the night, wrapped myself in my father's furs, and went out of the house.

From the village hearth, I took a coal and put it into a pot to carry. By that faint light I went to the borders of the village, and found the torch I had concealed within the hedge that bordered the past to the forest. I carried it with me unlit as far as I dared go, then lit it from the coal. I left the coal in the pot on a spot of bare earth by the path and went into the forest carrying the torch, seeking the Forest God.

I did not hope to find the bride who had not returned. She belonged to the dead now. Rather I was determined to have answers, to meet the one who had begotten me and ask him why he treated us so. My anger and my need to know had overcome my proper fear of a god and his mysteries, and so I went forth, knowing that I might be lost myself, that I might find the god and meet his wrath, that if I returned and confessed my trespass, I would surely be punished for the good of the tribe. None of that mattered any more; there was a madness upon me.

I was deep within the woods when a pain in my side made me stop and gasp. How had I been running--for yes, I had been running, and now was gasping--running through the forest with no heed of where I was going or when I had come? With the pain came fear, and then a blast of cold wind that nearly knocked me off my feet and blew out my torch.

I stood in total darkness, alone, unarmed, helpless. The darkness around me conjured the shapes of wolf and bear, sprite and ghost. The hair rose on my arms as I thought of meeting the spirits of dead brides.

The light that broke into my darkness made me cry aloud in shock. “Who walks here? Who walks in my woods?”

The voice came from everywhere around me, booming, rustling, piercing, bellowing. I cowered to the ground, covering my head, only hoping I did not soil myself in my terror.

I heard slow footsteps approach me, and the light grew brighter. I also felt its warmth and smelled something like wet earth and wild beast. “Who are you, child?”

The voice was closer, but softer, more human, and less angry. I raised my eyes a little and saw two hooves, a deer’s hooves. A deer’s long legs, clad in russet pelt, up to the hind and hips. Then shocking pale skin, the hairs thinning out about a flat navel, a long-fingered hand that cupped a ball of golden light, and I looked up and up into the face of the forest god.

It was my face, almost. Many times I had looked into still water and wondered why I resembled neither my mother and father, nor my womb-mother. Now I saw that his curling brown hair was like mine, and the eyes that gazed at me not with wrath but with confusion were green like mine, and the angles of his cheekbones and the shape of his mouth were like mine. I was his daughter, a child of the Forest God. 

“I am your daughter, lord,” I heard myself say. “I am your child.”

The god sank down on his haunches before me, spreading out his hands. A bubble of golden light spread forth that encompassed us both, and in that light he gazed on me, his head tilted like a wary bird’s, until a smile possessed his solemn face.

“A daughter! By the moon and the sun, you are my daughter! My likeness is in your face, and in your spirit.”

He took my hands and drew me to my feet, still gazing on me with wonder. Standing, I was still but little taller than his head as he stooped, not reckoning his antlers. His hands on mine were as warm and solid as any human touch, his grasp gentle.

“A daughter.” He sounded as astonished to see me as I was to see him. “I always hope that my seed will prove fruitful, but you are the first child who has come to me.”

“The first?” For longer than human memory, we have sent a bride each year. Not even the oldest grandmothers can remember a time we did not. Yet of all the children born before me, none had sought out their begetter.

“Lord, every bride who returns to us, every year, bears you a child. Your seed winds through the blood of the tribe.” Then I remembered that I was angry with him, that I had come to seek answers, not acknowledgement or affection. “But what of those other brides, forest lord? The ones who do not return to us, who are never seen again? And why do the brides who return come back dazed and dreaming, unable to speak of what they endured?”

The god’s face fell; he turned away from me, and let fall his hands into his lap. “I… can explain. Will you come with me, child? And how do they call you?” His eyes sought mine.

“My name is Brigenta,” I said. 

“Brigenta.” He rose to his feet, towering over me once again. “If you will, come with me, and we will speak of these things.” 

He turned and began walking away. After a moment’s hesitation, I rose and trotted after him, gathering my furs closely about me. He walked slowly, but with long strides that still kept him ahead of me at first. As we went deeper into the forest, he seemed to change, becoming shorter, less animal; simple clothing of fur and leather gathered about his form; his antlers diminished. 

We came to a clearing in which was a lake that glowed from within, as if a new-risen full moon had sunk there. He turned to me then, and I might have taken him for an ordinary man, tall but not eldritch, if I had not felt his power all about me, the light rising from the lake in the depths of night.

“You must take my hand, daughter.”

I was cold, and his hand was warm. So was the water of the lake into which he led me. Still I shook with fear, expecting almost to be drowned. Yet when the water had come up above my waist, the god bowed his head beneath it and we both sank, together. I lost my senses for a moment, and then found myself standing with the god by a hearth in a hall made of stones and tree roots.

It was warm and dry, lit by torches about the walls, with thick furs strewn near the hearth. Here and there I saw glimpses of fair things, a copper knife with an antler for its haft, a cup made of gold, carvings in the stone.

The god gestured and I sat down by the hearth, unwrapping my cloak of fur. He went to a spring that came out of the wall and filled two cups from the basin beneath it, one of which he gave to me. I drank warily, finding it cold as ice in the mouth, yet sweet and somehow green.

“It is a long story, and begins longer ago than any mortal can reckon,” the god said, sitting down with me. He held the cup in his long pale hands and gazed into it as he spoke. “Long ago the tribe was part of the forest, as much as any bird or beast or tree, as much as I am. When you left it to roam in other lands, I wanted not to lose you. I sent messages to those who still lived close to my world, who still depended on the forest, asking them to send me a mate. So they did, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman. Sometimes I got them with child, sometimes I gave them other gifts.

“But we grew farther apart, your tribe and me. The tribe spent less time in the forest, learned to tame beasts and grow crops, met other gods who helped them. They needed me less, spoke to me less, understood me less, and began to fear me more.”

He looked up at me, lifted a hand, pushed his long locks back from his face. “I hoped that getting children on the tribeswomen would help keep us joined together, but it has not been so. No child has ever sought to know me. Most of the brides I am sent are frightened of me; some are so afraid that I cannot even touch them. A few of them flee, and come to grief, or do themselves harm.” He sighed, looking away. “The last bride who was came to me ran in terror when she beheld me. I followed, but before I could stop her, she fell into a deep ravine and broke her skull and many bones on the rocks below. All I could do was give her an easy death and open the way for her spirit to pass through.”

He gazed earnestly at me again. “I will show you where she lies, if you wish. But will you not tell me of yourself? And of how the tribe chooses the women who are sent to me? Why are so many of them so afraid?”

I told him then, hesitantly and wanderingly, what I have already spoken of myself. His face was grave as he heard how my mother did not speak, and was too weak to nurse or tend me, and still lived with her own mother like a child. I told him how we had held the funeral rites already for the lost bride, as we had done before when they did not return. And I told him how the wise people of the tribe, the seers and spirit-speakers, looked for signs and chose the bride by lot.

When he heard that, he grew angry; his heavy brows drew together, his eyes flashed golden, and the corners of his mouth drew down. “The women are not asked for their consent? Those who are chosen have not declared themselves willing? No wonder they flee from me!” I cringed away from him, and his mood changed again. “I am sorry, child. My anger is not for you. I am angry because I do not understand.” 

He rose and walked away from me. I inched closer to the hearth, feeling cold despite the lively flames.

“Are you hungry, daughter?” he said presently. I said that I was, and he made a sign for me to wait. He went through a doorway hung with vines and returned with a flat sheet of stone on which were a large apple and the cap of a large mushroom. He sat down again with the food between us and with a small knife of stone cut both apple and mushroom into slices. He gestured that I should help myself and took a few slices to eat when I had done so.

The apple was the sweetest I had ever tasted, and the flesh of the mushroom as rich and satisfying as meat. We ate silently together till all was gone, gazing into the flames.

“I am too far away,” the god said at last. “Already I am too far away to speak directly to the tribe. They fear me, the very thing I had hoped to avoid.” He looked at me keenly. “Tell me in truth, if you spoke to the elders and told them that you sought me out, that I said I wished for no more unwilling mates, would they listen?”

It gave me a great feeling of pride and wonder to imagine that, for a moment--me, barely a woman, bringing a message from a god to the elders! But it was only imagining. “No, forest lord,” I replied. “Why should they? Our ways seem good to them; they do not reckon the feelings of those who are chosen, or that you might think differently than themselves. And you have not denied us your blessings, as they think.”

He sighed deeply, almost a groan, and stood up. “Then I will ask you this, Brigenta, my daughter: Sleep here tonight, and all will be well for you. My blessing will always be with you, and you may call on me for help at need. And as soon as I have the fortune of a bride who comes to me willingly, I will ask her to stay, and take no more brides from the tribe.”

He took away the food then and brought me a smooth stone to lay my head on, bidding me sleep by the hearth. He sat some distance from me, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped round them. The room became dim, and my last sight was of the god sitting against the wall, his eyes glowing golden in the dark. 

When I woke in the morning, I lay beneath a great fir tree, wrapped from head to toe in furs. The sun had risen, and by its light I could see that I was close to where the trees thinned out and the path led back to the village. I felt stiff and hungry, but not very cold, and clear of mind; I remembered all that had happened the night before and did not doubt its truth. 

Feeling at once satisfied to have met the god, and sad because I had made him sad, I stood up and gathered the furs around me so I could walk in them. Something fell to the ground, which I picked up. It was the prong of an antler with a green gemstone bound to its base by fine gold wine. A hole pierced through it just above the base where I might run a cord or a thong, and so hang it about my neck.

With the gift of my father in my hand, I raised my head and began to walk back to the village, knowing now that it was not my only home.


	2. Finmael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The son of Conmael and Niamh seeks the truth of his parentage in the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas and happy winter holidays! My gift to you is chapter two of this fic. Thanks to roosebolton and gloriousthorn for their ongoing support and to my bird Rembrandt for keeping me company while I finished writing the chapter.
> 
> I have changed the rating from G to T with this chapter because of some violence and bloodshed. "Cliodhna", by the way, should be pronounced "Clee-uh-nah". More or less.

I am Finmael, son of Conmael mac Conor, a chieftain’s son rich in many cows and in wit. My mother was Niamh, daughter of Fintan, but in truth, I am a child of the Forest God.

Long ago, the story says, the people gave each year a bride to the Forest God, who waited for one who would be willing to stay with him. When he found his true bride, no more maidens were sent to him, but still in times of trouble, the tale of his marriage was re-enacted, and a man and a maid chosen by lot stood for the god and his bride. This was to remind the god that we were his kin by marriage and that he had an obligation to help us.

My parents had come together when they were chosen for the rite; he, the youngest son of the chieftain, she, the only daughter of a poor cowherd. I was the eldest of their children, conceived in the sacred rite, but not the only; I was followed by two sisters and a brother. 

I did not always know there was anything different about me. My father was of noble birth but not important; he was more interested in my mother’s cows than in feats of swordplay or wrestling or in bragging over the mead at the feast. Their marriage was a happy one, and I was three when my sister Enya was born, five when Cliodhna came along, and nine when baby Conor arrived. 

I was about seven, I think, and Enya was beginning to walk, Cliodhna was still in arms, and Conor not yet come, when I learned the story of my birth. For the first time since my parents had come together, the rite of the Forest God and his Bride was held, and my father took me to witness it. This was also the first time I can remember doing something with my father alone, just the two of us, while my mother and sisters stayed home. Just the way we set out alone not long after sunrise to walk to the village from our steading made me know that something special was going on.

Da kissed Ma at the door and said, "Don't wait up, love, don't know how late we're going to stay."

"Stay overnight in the village, if you please, unless you want to carry himself there all the way home in the middle of the night." Ma smiled and gave me a kiss and straightened my cloak over my shoulders.

"Be a good boy, then, and show respect to your da and the gods. Just because we don't honor the Forest God very often doesn't mean he isn't important."

"I will, Ma, I promise. And I won't fall asleep!"

Ma and Da both laughed at me, not meanly; then we stepped out, my father and I, heading east toward the rising sun, where the village lay and, further east and north, the forest.

"Tell me about the Forest God, Da?" I said, when we had walked a little ways.

Da took a deep breath. "He is the Lord of the forest, the master of all the birds and beasts, all the growing things and rotting things that live there. He is the sunlight and the wind, the moonlight and the trees, the deer and the wolf, the dove and the crow. He gives us game and fruits, mushrooms, acorns, fish from the streams. He is kind but wild; he does not come around human places very much."

"What does he look like?" All the stories I had heard about the gods told how they looked--the Good God with his club and his harp and his big belly, the Crow Queen with her red hair and her spear and always her crows about her, the Bright Youth with his fair hair and long hands.

Da did not answer right away. Then he said, "He looks like a man with the legs of a deer, and the antlers of a deer. His hair is long and brown and curling, his eyes are green, and he has a beard. His voice is soft and warm but very powerful." He shook his head and said no more.

I was very impressed by these words. "Have you seen him, Da? Have you seen the Forest God?"

Again, he did not answer right away. "Let us talk more later, cub, all right? We need to walk a little faster now."

When we reached the village, the feast had already begun. There was venison and roast potatoes, bread and cheese and apples, cider and mead. I was hungry and thirsty by then, so I only thought about eating and drinking and watching all the people around me. Everyone was dressed in their finest, with many ornaments; Da and I looked plain beside some folk. Da talked to many people during the feast, some of whom were druids. I was a little frightened by the druids, with their long white robes and their headdresses of birds and horns and animal skins. But I did not have to talk to them, as I did to my father's kin.

In spite of what I had said earlier, I already felt sleepy by the time we were gathering for the rite. Da put me up on his shoulders so that I could see, and I felt a cool breeze stirring that helped me wake up. All the druids, men and women, were gathered, and our chieftain, my father's oldest brother, my Uncle Dathi, and his warriors, and all the people, near the sacred precinct where the druids lived and had their rites.

The horns sounded, and two people came out into an open space. There was a woman in a fine white linen gown, with a garland of autumn leaves on her head and a necklace of acorns on her breast. I felt as if I had seen her before, yet I knew I did not know her; she was much younger than my Ma, thin, with dark hair.

The other person was a deer, I thought at first--a stag, with a great crown of antlers. Then I saw it was only a man, wearing a whole deerskin with the head as a mask on his face, and necklaces of berries and bone and antler pieces on his chest. Then I thought it was the god himself, half deer, half man, his antlers sprouting from curling hair, a golden light quivering about him. And I knew, without doubt, that I knew him, that I had always known him.

The god and his bride began to dance, him leading, her following. The crowd was silent; the druids hummed low and shook rattles made of deer hooves. The god and the bride circled one another, turning toward each other, turning away, until finally they touched palm to palm and kissed. Then the druids circled in around them and herded them into the sacred precinct, closing the gates behind them.

A kind of sigh went up from all the people, and the crowd began to disperse, some going away toward their homes, some milling about. My father, with a little groan, lifted me down to the ground and took my hand. "Walk with me, cub."

We walked toward the sacred precinct, past the gate that was bound shut with cords and vines, and around it, toward the great dark mass that was the forest. The moon had risen, at the full, pouring golden light over the tops of the trees. I felt a little frightened, even though Da was holding my hand; I had never been so close to the forest before. 

“Do you have any questions about what you just watched, Fin? As the druids say, questions are the key of all knowledge and wisdom.”

I had to think about that. Already the nearness of the forest loomed larger in my mind than the mysteries of the sacred rite.

“If the forest lord is a god, Da, is his bride a goddess?”

Da squeezed my hand. “A good question! Once upon a time, the god got a new bride every year, chosen from the people. This was done until he found his true bride, who promised to stay with him for ever. So she was once mortal, but then became a goddess.”

The wind stirred the trees so that they rustled sweetly, but I did not feel the wind. “What happened to the other brides?”

“They went back to their people, bearing a child for the god, and lived happy lives with his blessing.”

“He wasn’t angry with them for not being the right person?” I thought it would be very bad if the god were angry.

“No, not at all. He just waited for the right one.”

I considered that. “Why do we make the rite, then, if the forest god is happy?”

Da sighed. “Because sometimes the god needs to be reminded that he should bless us, because we are kin by marriage. Or perhaps we need to be reminded that we are kin to the gods.”

The wind stirred again, ruffling my hair as well as the trees. Da drew me a little closer to him, and our wandering began to turn away from the forest, back toward the village. 

“I think it is time to tell you this thing, cub, but I’m still not sure if you will understand it. Do you understand that the god and his bride were not really there, at the rite, that people were chosen to stand in for them?”

I remembered seeing the god, the golden light. “But he was there, Da! I saw him, just as you said he would look! He was there with the man that was pretending to be him.”

Da stopped then, and stooped before me. The moonlight made his hair glow, a bit like the light around the god. He took me gently by the shoulders. “Before you were born, Finmael, your mother and I were chosen to play the god and his bride. We made the rite, and he was with me, and the bride was with your Ma. That was how we came together, and after that we married. So in a way, you are not only the son of Conmael and Niamh. You are also the son of the forest god and his bride.”

What my father said then seemed right and true; it confirmed my feeling that I already knew the god. But I was also a sleepy child of seven, awake past my bedtime. I looked at my father’s thoughtful, concerned face, and for a moment I thought I saw antlers on his head, a beard shadowing his mouth. Then I swayed, half-asleep, or half-awake.

“I love you, Da,” I said.

I suppose that was the right thing to say. He picked me up, then, chuckling, and carried me back toward the village. I feel asleep in his arms.

Years past and little Conor was born, named after Da’s father, and nothing untoward happened. One year there were skirmishes with a neighboring tribe, but my father did not fight. He did, however, steal some of the enemy’s cattle and keep them, for which my mother praised him very much. Our chieftain, my uncle, fell sick one winter and died, very suddenly, and another of my uncles was chosen as chieftain in his place. There were good years and bad, but we did not again petition the forest god.

I grew from a boy to a man, with the changes of body that manhood brings. Only some of the changes I felt were different than what I had been told to expect. I grew hair not just in certain places, but nearly everywhere, chest and belly, arms and legs, even my back and the tops of my feet. My voice had barely broken, yet I had a beard to rival a chieftain’s. My hair, which had been fair and reddish, grew darker, though it still glowed red beneath the sun, and much of the hair on my body was russet. As a wean I had resembled my mother, but as I approached full manhood, I looked less and less like either Ma or Da, and more like my memory of the Forest God, with his curly hair, strong bones, and full beard.

Like any youth I had dream-visions that made me waken aroused, and sometimes already spent, but these, too, were strange. Most boys, Da said, would dream of their ideal love, a faery woman whose likeness they might find among mortal women. Some would dream of a faery youth and seek a companion among other men. My dreams were neither: I dreamt of the forest. And I woke not roused or spent, but changed.

I was fourteen or fifteen, I think, the first time it happened. I was dreaming of running through the forest. I was not afraid; no, I was laughing, for pure joy. I felt the sun and the wind; my limbs were loose and vital; the trees and the underbrush seemed to part for me, so there was always a clear path under my feet. I looked down, in the dream, and saw that I was running on four legs, not two, and that my feet were the paws of a wolf--

I woke up, panting, and saw my outstretched arm before me. Only it was a hairy leg that ended in a twitching paw.

I sat up with a cry, which made me clap my hand over my mouth lest I disturb my family. I realized that my hand was just a hand, not a paw; I looked down, and my body seemed all right. I pulled off my covers, then, and saw my feet--hairy, and clawed, and shrinking back to human size and shape.

I did not know what to do, whom to tell. I spent that day out with the cattle, running long distances and coming back to the herd, until I felt exhausted. Despite my fears, I slept deeply that night, and for some time after. If I dreamed of the forest, I did not remember it, until I did.

In this dream I knew from the first that I did not have a human form. I walked on four legs and ate from the growing things around me. My neck was long and there was a weight on my head. Part of me was calm and serene in this body; part of me was still aware that it was a dream and wondered what was going on.

I came to a broad, clear lake that seemed to glow from within. The trees did not meet overhead, and no leaves cluttered its surface. I walked to the brim and bent my head to drink. I noticed only the cold sweetness of the water until my thirst was slaked. Then I looked at the water and saw my face, my body, the form of a young stag crowned with velvety prongs--

This time I woke in silence, feeling the strangeness all over. I threw off the covers and, in the darkness, ran my hands over myself. My haunches had grown hairy; my knees bent backwards, as it seemed. Not feet but hooves, and on my head, beneath my tangled hair, the shapes of budding antlers.

Tears came to my eyes. My body ached, down to the very bones, and I was afraid. I lay still until my urge to weep subsided, along with the ache. When I dared feel at my leg again, it was no hairier than usual, in its proper human shape. But the buds of antlers were still beneath my hair. 

Twice more I woke from dreams of the forest with the body of an animal. After dreaming of being a fox as he mated with a vixen, I had a fox’s ears, whiskers, and tail, and I had spent myself, too. After I woke with the furs and blankets on me shredded, and the claws of a giant bear shrinking into my fingers, I knew that I must seek help. 

I spoke to my father as soon as I could get him apart from my mother and my siblings, showing him one of the blankets I had ripped. He listened and nodded gravely while repairing one of the fences round our lands. When I had no more to say, he folded his arms and looked across the fence, toward the forest. Some of the trees had begun to turn brown and gold.

At last he said, “I think we must speak to the druids, lad.”

I did not care for this answer; I have never felt easy around the druids, as he knew. But I had asked for his advice, and so I heeded it, and he went with me to speak to speak to Brecan, the druid whom he knew best. 

Brecan was not much older than Da, and unlike some of his caste, did not walk around in daily life wearing his white robes and his ceremonial bird head-piece and all the rest. We shared a midday meal and I told him of my dreams, the changing of shapes, the different animals, the waking with my body still halfway in the dream.

After we had eaten, he made a brew of herbs just for himself. As the water heated, he patted my arm kindly. “I do not think this is a curse, son of Conmael. My spirit tells me that it is in some way a blessing, but it may be more than I can do to help you use it wisely. Give me an hour or two to divine, come and see me before supper, and I should have an answer for you.”

With that I had to be content for the moment. I walked back out to the fence with Da. “He will drink the sacred brew, and then lie under the bull’s hide, and the answer will come to him in vision.” At my look of surprise, he feigned to be offended. “What? I might have been a druid myself, if I had had a better memory, and more interest in knowledge for its own sake, and less interest in food.”

He was pleased that I laughed, and we talked no more of the dreams then, but walked the fence together and made repairs. Before supper, however, we spoke to Brecan outside the hall.

“If I have understood what I saw,” he said, looking on me, “you must go into the forest, alone, and seek your true father the god, and ask your questions of him.”

It was near to the time of year when the rite of the god’s marriage would be celebrated, if it were to be done. That year it was not; it had been a good year, many lambs in the spring, abundant grain in the summer, apples and honey and many other gifts from the forest. 

So I gave out that I was going hunting for a few days, made up a pack with a bedroll and food stuffs, took my bow and arrows, and marched off to the wood as the sun was rising through a cold bank of mist. It seemed that nothing was clear or distinct around me except the dark outline of the forest and the narrow track through the fields that led to it. I heard no sound except what might have been a distant lark, its song wavering through the mist.

It was still dark under the trees. I could barely see to walk forward. I made my way toward a spring that I knew, laid out my bedroll there, and sat down, wrapped up in my cloak and furs. I ate a hunk of cheese and drank from the spring, and left a piece of bread there as an offering. I was going to sit and wait until the mists had cleared, until the sun penetrated beneath the trees, until I felt more awake….

What happened, it seemed, was that I fell asleep, and I dreamed. I was walking through the forest, which was bright as it never was in the waking world, bright as if both sun and moon shone into it together. I was walking, seeking for something, or someone. Though I saw no tracks, though I had no scent, though I heard no sound, I was tracking something in the woods, and my walking turned into trotting, my trotting into running, as I drew nearer to my desire.

Then I saw: At the top of a hill, in a clearing, clear and distinct in that white-gold light as the first star in the darkened east, a magnificent stag.

I did not draw my bow and aim. I was not a man. Snarling like a wolf I ran, crouching low, and leaped upon him. But he lowered his head and swung, and I scurried back, whining with pain from a scratch on one shoulder from those prongs.

I became a stag and charged him. Our antlers locked; I thrust with all my might, bellowing harshly while he panted in silence, but he was heavier than I and my hooves slid, giving way before him.

I became a fox and tried to fasten on his throat, but he was faster than seemed possible and shied away, striking out with sharp hooves. I became a bear, standing even taller than the stag, and swiped at him with claws as long as a man’s fingers, but could not get close enough because of the antlers aimed at my belly. 

I fell to my hands and knees, not sure what was my form or my name and nature. As I hesitated, weak with the pain of effort and more than one wound from an antler prong, the stag took on the form of a man, down to his waist, with the legs of a deer and the antlers. He looked into my eyes, and I knew him--

\--and woke, cold and half-naked, sore and smelling of my own sweat and blood, with the god in the flesh crouching at the foot of my bedroll.

He gave me a smile that did not seem very amiable. “If you want to challenge me for my place, lad, you’ll have to do better than that.”

I stared at him, mute and gap-mouthed as a fish, while my mind tried to weave together the dream and the waking reality and make one tapestry of them. When I tried to speak, I croaked, and had to drink from the spring before I could answer him.

“I did not come to challenge you, lord, although I am your son.”

The god drew back, as if in surprise, then put his head forward, as a deer does, and looked at me closely for a moment. “Are you, then?”

I decided to have a little more dignity. I drew my cloak and my furs around me and said, “I am Finmael, son of Conmael son of Conor, and of Niamh daughter of Fintan, who made the Rite of the Forest God and his Bride in your honor.”

He stared at me for a moment longer, then laughed out loud. I realized that despite his beard, he appeared to be younger than my father, perhaps not much older than myself.

“I remember them, yes! They let us join through their bodies, it was glorious. And you are the child of that rite.” But he frowned again. “You did attack me, lad. Why did you do that, if you are my son, if you did not come to challenge my guardianship?”

I bowed my head before him. “I am sorry, lord. I do not know what I am doing, or what I am, or why I--change in my dreams. I wake with the limbs of an animal and my bedclothes ruined, I tear things with teeth and claws, and I am afraid and the druid said that I must come to you for answers--”

“Peace, lad,” and his voice was soft and deep. He laid his hand on my head. “I understand now. First, let me heal you.”

The god dipped his hand into the spring and with a palmful of water washed down the wound in my shoulder. I saw that, though bloody, it was but a shallow scratch, and it grew whole beneath his touch as a torn shirt grows whole when a skilled hand sews a seam. He likewise washed off other places on my body, until I was clean of blood and free of pain.

“Now come and walk with me, lad.” He stood up, holding out his hand to me. “Leave your weapons there and your gear and walk like you belong here.”

I got to my feet and walked with the god, barefoot and wearing nothing but an old, much-mended tunic suitable for hunting. My trews I left on my bedroll along with my boots, my bow and arrows, my cloak and furs, yet I did not feel cold, somehow. The sunlight seemed warmer on my skin; my feet felt more sure on the forest floor bare than they did in boots.

“Not many of my children come to me,” said the god, presently. He sounded like Da did was he was unhappy about something and trying to hide it. “You are the first of whom I know to share the natures of beasts. Once, long ago, men knew they were kin to animals and counted themselves members of the animal clans. To be named after the wolf or the deer, the hawk or the salmon, was to claim a membership in their family.”

He looked at me sidelong, and I thought for perhaps the first time that my name, indeed, means “white wolf”. 

“Your flesh is a man’s, but you have an animal soul. Which beast is true to your nature, cub: the cunning of the fox? The might of the bear? The swiftness of the stag? Or the loyalty of the wolf whose name you bear?”

I thought about that as we walked. If I could choose to take one shape and no others? If I could change by my will and not merely in dreams and fevers?

“Lord, I fear causing harm to my family, or my people. If I become a fox, what if I hunt the geese? If I become a wolf, what if I kill a sheep? If I become a bear, what if I injured someone?”

The god stopped and turned to face me. I realized then how tall he was; I am nearly as tall as Da, yet the top of my head barely came up to the god’s chin. And his antlers made him loom taller than any mortal. He placed his hands on my shoulders, his long white fingers gripping me.

“You have the soul of an animal, but the mind and spirit of a man. Is there anyone whom you would desire to hurt? Any enemy, anyone whose possessions you covet?”

“No, lord,” I said, which was the truth. 

“Or anyone against whom you have a grudge? Anyone who has hurt your kin?”

“No.”

“Then you need not fear the animal in yourself, if the man is true.” He laid a hand on my cheek, as gently as my da would, and smiled. “You are my son in the spirit, and my lady’s, and the son of good people in the flesh. Do not fear yourself. You do not fear me, do you?”

“No, lord,” and that was also truth. To have him smile upon me and call me his son was like standing in the warm sun on a cool spring morning.

“Then come and run with me. Like this--” He stepped back, and his form shifted, melting into a golden mist, distilling back into flesh. He was all stag now, except that his eyes were still a deep mossy green, wiser than a deer’s or a man’s.

“Find the deer in yourself, cub,” said his voice in my heart. “Four legs of great swiftness, a strong neck to bear your crowned head proudly.”

I tried to remember waking up with hairy legs and hooves for feet, but that only made me cold with fear--that was not the way. To look like the god, to feel that my spirit was my own but my shape was not set… I looked long into his eyes until I felt it, the desire to run and leap, the sun crowning my head, the flicker of divinity in my blood. And there I stood, my four hooves on the ground, flanks heaving, and I could see above me the rack of my own antlers, not so great as my father’s, as I was not so tall or so heavy as he.

I felt his laughter within me, and we began to run. It was a joy to run, to be moving, to be swift, to leap boldly and then land surely. I felt like my blood was made of sunlight, like I could run forever. We ran and ran and then we paused and drank together from a shallow stream. The god trotted across the water and said, “Now this form, cub.”

His body sank, contracted, stretched. Where there had been a stag, now there was a wolf, a beast of great size with mingled grey and russet fur, yet with the same deep green eyes, now ringed in gold. He leaped at me, no, over me, rolling forward to land on his back, pale belly exposed, his tongue lolling out to one side like a playful hound’s. 

I felt the deer’s instinct to flee with all speed from this powerful predator, yet at the same time, a child’s instinct to laugh and play with him, two pups in a pile. I brought my thinking mind to that playful feeling, bared my teeth, and felt the change ripple over me, from deer to wolf, from close-grown hair to shaggy fur, the weight of the antlers gone, the heady rush of scents into a keener nose.

Whining, I nosed at the god-wolf, smelling the heavy ruff of fur around his neck. He nipped at me and leaped up, pushing me over and onto my back, and then we were rolling over and over together, mock-biting, growling at a pitch that my mind heard as laughter. A mere game, a wrestling match, without even the need for a winner and a loser. I was no match for the god, in any form; it was his choice to teach me this way, in sport and not in war. 

After this we ran as foxes and hunted a hare together, and I knew the joy of the swift bite that breaks the neck and the taste of hot flesh only moments from life. As badgers we dug beneath an ancient, massive stump, and I felt the strength of those muscles, the ruthless efficiency of its claws. As bears we ate fresh honey from the comb, well worth the few stings I suffered. I returned to human shape, naked, dirty, breathless, and happy, and learned how to send my mind aloft into a bird, or down into the fish of the streams, while my body rested.

At last we fetched up beside a pool of water that was hot and smelled of minerals. “Wash now, lad,” said the god, “it is time to send you back to your people.”

I felt sad, then, for part of me wished to stay in the forest with my spirit’s father always, running with the beasts. But I obeyed him, rinsing away dirt and blood in the healing waters, and when I was done, we walked only a little ways and he showed me my bedroll beneath a tree, where my cloak and furs and other gear still lay. 

“You may visit whenever you wish, Finmael, son of Conmael and son of mine, but remember this: Your kin and your tribe need you, and you belong with them.”

Then he took my face between his hands and kissed my forehead, and was gone in a sudden shaft of light.

I dressed as best I could, with what was left of my clothing. My boots felt so wrong on my feet that I wrapped them up in my bedroll to carry with me. Then I slung bow and quiver over my back and, without thinking too much about which way I was going, headed toward home.

I walked, and then I ran, light and quick, not as fast as I could have in deer shape, but faster than most men could sustain. The closer I felt to home, however, the more I felt a dread of something. Something was wrong. I wanted my wolf’s nose again to smell it, my wolf’s ears to hear it. I ran faster, struggling to keep two legs and a clear mind.

I did smell it before I could see it--the smell of burning. Then, as I broke out of the woods, I saw the plume of dark smoke rising from our homestead, and heard faintly screaming and shouting, made out my da’s voice and what sounded like Cliodhna shrieking. There was a trembling in my belly that had nothing to do with fear. I ran as far and as fast as I could before I had to stop, shake off the weapons and clothes that were now just impediments, and let the wolf within me take over.

Wolf though I was, I understood what I saw when I got to the house: my father clashing swords with a big man in a helmet; my mother struggling with a man who was trying to carry off a kicking, screaming Cliodhna; little Conor, no longer so little, trying to hold off two other men with only a spear. The snarl that broke from my mouth tore the air like lightning; the fighting paused for a moment, and in that pause I leaped first for the raider who had hold of my sister. I got my jaws around the arm that held her and bit down until I felt the bone break in my grip; the man howled with pain, and I yanked him off his feet, making him let go of my sister. He had barely hit the ground before I tore out his throat.

I turned toward the two men assailing my brother and rushed them. They were cowards and fled, as did Conor, his voice breaking as he ran into the house and slammed the door. Well enough--the raider fighting my father was the biggest, and the best armed as well.

Both Da and the raider turned and raised their swords when I snarled in challenge. I leapt at the raider, but he turned my killing bite with one arm and bashed his sword on my skull with the other. The blow hurt but did not fell me; I still had the force of my leap, and the two of us toppled together. With great strength the raider rolled us, putting me beneath him. I seized him with my legs, trying to hold him so that he could not use his sword on me while I sought his throat with my teeth. 

Then he grunted horribly, and his blood splashed out--not from his throat, but from his breast, where the point of a spear protruded. The spear was pulled out, and he rolled away, twitching and gushing blood, until my mother jammed the spear in his belly and my father thrust his sword up into the heart.

I lay there beside the dying raider and saw on their faces that they were about to use that sword and that spear on me. And then I was afraid, and sorrowful, and in a moment I was human again.

I tried to speak and it was more like a whine. “Da?”

My father dropped the bloody sword. “Finmael?”

My mother let out a cry and tossed away the spear. “Ah gods! My son!”

She dropped to her knees beside me and wept. I was shocked; rarely did my mother weep, and never like this; she was more like to sniffle over a sad tale than to sob over a true sorrow.

“Finmael, lad….” Da also knelt beside me, stretching out a shaking hand. “Is it really you?”

My head was throbbing and my muscles ached, but I managed to sit up. “Ma, Da, it’s all right, I’m all right--are, are Cliodhna and--”

“Finmael,” my mother broke in, in a sharp tone I recognized, “you’ve been gone for *monthsI!”

My head swam. I could not make sense of this. “Son,” said my father, gravely, “you went into the forest not long after the equinox. It is nigh midwinter. We thought you were dead.”

“I wouldn’t let them hold funeral rites. Not yet.” My mother shook her head. “The druids bullied me, but I said no, my son is alive, my son is alive….” She covered her face with both hands as she began to sob once more. 

“Fin?” I looked to see Cliodhna creeping close. She was pale, her sleeve torn and a dark bruise blooming on her fair arm, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. 

“Little blossom?” I said, holding out my hand. She came and took it and then she fell on me and hugged me, laughing and crying. Then my parents were able to touch me, and Conor, too, came out of the house and yelled at me for leaving and cried and let me hold him. 

After they brought me into the house and I washed off, again, and put on clothes (but still no shoes) and ate nearly everything that was in the pantry, I was able to tell them some of what had befallen me in the forest. Nothing that I could have said, nothing I have written, can fully tell what it was like, but at least I could assure my family that I had the favor of the Forest God, and that I was no danger to myself or them, and that they, too, had the god’s blessing and I would always protect them, for I loved them.

I never did take to wearing shoes again, nor did I ever learn to fight with weapons. But my father spoke to the druids, and the druids spoke with me and then to my uncle our chief, and I fought for the tribe in wolf or bear shape many times, till no more raiders dared come. I did not wed, but my sister and brother gave our parents plenty of grandchildren to dote on, and I found my pleasure in animal shape where no other human walked, and gave my nieces and nephews gifts from the heart of the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visit me on Tumblr at [rembrandtswife](http://rembrandtswife.tumblr.com</a).


	3. Jeanne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her name has been forgotten, but her story and her spirit live on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TAGS HAVE CHANGED. Warnings for violence and rape threats, along with misogynistic language. The end is a happy one, however.
> 
> Thanks as always to roosebolton and rhysiana for encouragement and beta.

My name is... my name was. It is no longer my name. Jean, Jeanne, Jeannette, Janicot... my name now is wind and water, sunlight and winter. I have been changed.

Sometimes I remember much about my mother, but then I forget. I never knew my father. I remember running on the grass with other children, laughing and shouting, tossing a ball made of wool and trying to hit one another with it; if you were hit with the ball, you left the game for that round. I remember there was a tree at the center of the village, and women would come and hang charms from it, wishes tied up in rags and trinkets, and several times a year they would come and dance around it. Then the priest would come and shout and try to take down the charms from the tree, and a couple of the men would come after and lead him away. And we, the children of the village, would dance around the tree together as we had seen the women do.

I remember lying under the tree, comfortable on its thick curving roots, watching the insects crawl upon its bark, and hearing the calls of birds in the branches and the rustling of the leaves. It was peaceful there and on warm days, I could fall asleep, and not even wake when my mother called me. I loved the tree almost as much as I loved my mother; its body was as safe to me as her body.

I remember a day when I saw little Ancelin, the son of the nobleman of the manor, practicing his sword-fighting in the village square. He danced around, waving and thrusting his shiny sword, making excited noises. Busy people swerved around him on their errands, and the chickens scattered from him until the rooster came forth and crowed fiercely and darted at his legs.

He came and sat under the tree, panting. He looked at me as if he wanted me to go away, but I did not; I was there first. "Show me how to do that," I said. "How to fight with a sword."

An ugly expression came over his face. "You can't fight with a sword."

"Why not?" I was taller and probably stronger than he was.

"Because you're a girl! Besides that, you're a peasant and a bastard." He stood up and looked down at me, one hand on the hilt of his little sword.

"I am not!" I stood up, too, to look down at him. "I'm not a girl!"

"Yes, you are! You may not know how to dress like one, but you're a girl. Boys are better than girls, just as nobles are better than peasants." That ugly look, I learned, was called a sneer.

"I think you're wrong. How do you know I'm a girl? For that matter, how do you know you're a boy?"

Ancelin laughed. "Are you stupid, then, along with being a peasant's bastard get? What's between your legs, that's how you tell."

I had never thought about what was between my legs. Mother was always trying to make me wear drawers in warm weather, but I usually forgot. I was too busy playing or climbing the village tree or running into the woods.

"Show me," I said, lifting my chin.

"If you show me yours."

Turning my back to passersby, I hiked up my gown to my belly. Ancelin pointed and laughed.

"See, you've got a cunny! That means you're a girl." He began fumbling with the strings of his trews.

I cupped my hand over the mound between my legs. It was smooth, split like a fruit down the middle, like a valley in the hills. It gave me a little shiver to stroke over its folds.

"See!" Ancelin's trews were about his knees now. "I've got a prick, because I'm a boy."

He seemed very proud of this fact. I looked curiously at it: a little shaft of pink flesh, like a questing root growing out of his belly, and behind it a dangling sack with wrinkled skin. It did not seem like much to be proud of, and it was not till later that I thought of the town bull with his massive bollocks and the red thing that came out of its hairy sheath when he mounted the cows.

Later on, at home, I asked my mother, "Mama, are you a peasant?"

She gave me a sidelong glance. "No, love, I am a merchant. I sell what I make and buy food with coin."

She put mutton stew and bread and cheese on the table. "Am I a bastard?"

Mama sat down. "I suppose. I know who fathered you, and he knows you, but he and I were not wed when we coupled, and you were never formally acknowledged."

This did not particularly make sense. "Who is he, mama?"

She sighed, dishing out stew. "He is Marcel Marcoul, Ancelin's father, the lord of the manor."

“Why has he not acknowledged me? Why did Ancelin call me a bastard?”

She sighed again. “Because that is what the sons of highborn women call the children their fathers beget on lowborn mothers. As to why he has never acknowledged you, I do not know.” She dipped her spoon into her bowl and nodded her chin at my bowl. “Try not to worry about it, and stay away from Ancelin if you can.”

I wanted to stay away from Ancelin, but I did not want to stay away from my tree. Lucky for me, I saw little of him; the older he grew, the less time he spent amongst common people in the town. 

In the spring, when summer was almost come, the women and girls would get together and make garlands of the earliest flowers, and put them on and dance around the tree, and pour offerings of wine and clean water over its roots, and then hang the garlands on the tree’s boughs when they were done. I danced with them, hearing the tree sing its pleasure in return. It always began to bloom soon after the garlands were hung on it. 

We had always done this. Then one year came a priest in his black robes who threw his holy water at us and burned foul-smelling stuff in a metal pot, ranting and raving at us and calling us witches, demon lovers, daughters of evil, and what not else. My mother and the other women put themselves between him and the girls.

“Away with you!” one woman shouted. “You’re the evil one, seeing badness everywhere!”

“We do you no harm! You’ll still get your congregation and your money!” cried another.

“We have always done this,” said my mother. “The Marcouls have always known and permitted it.”

The priest chanted something in his holy language, and spat toward my mother. “Not for much longer,” he said, and took his holy water and his foul smoke away. 

I crept out to the tree after dinner that night, to put my arms around it and whisper comforting words. “We will not let him harm you,” I said. “We will sing and dance for you and drench your roots just as we have always done.” I felt the tree quiver and embraced it more tightly. 

It was not much later that same year that I first had my monthly blood. I was frightened when I awoke to blood between my thighs, seeping from the deepest part of my body. When I told my mother, however, she calmed me, telling me it was the way of things for women, every moon unless I became pregnant, and then again even after I had borne a child.

“I don’t want to be a woman, then!” I cried. “Let me become a man instead!”

“That’s foolish talk, daughter.” She brought a basin of warm water and some old rags. “You cannot become a man simply by wishing, nor can a man turn into a woman, though he can be unmanned.”

I did not understand any of this. I let her clean me and show me how to bind old rags into my drawers to catch the blood, and how I should offer some of my blood to our tree by pouring out the water I had washed with over its roots. I still thought, though, that I would prefer to be a man rather than have this pain and this infirmity every month, and the risk of childbearing, too, or to be neither man nor woman but simply myself, like the tree.

When five days had passed, my pains and my bleeding were over. As my mother had bade me, I took a last jug of the bloodied water out to the tree, just after dawn, and there I saw Ancelin. He was standing beneath the tree, arms folded, looking toward me as if he had been waiting for me.

“So it’s true. You are a woman now, and making offerings to this tree like a pagan whore.”

I did not understand what he meant by calling me a “pagan whore.” I often felt that the older I grew, the less I understood the world, when I had thought to understand it more.

“If you mean I get my monthly blood now, yes, I do.” I came forward with the jug in my hands.

He backed away as if I were threatening him. “Ugh, it’s disgusting even to speak of it! I will tell Father about you, and he will tell the priest, and all this pagan foolishness will be stopped.”

I paused, the jug on my hip. “Your father is my father, so I’ve been told. But he hasn’t acknowledged me, so why should he care what I do?”

“You disrespectful slut--” He struck me hard on the face with his fist. I stumbled and nearly fell, dropping the jug as I tried to keep my balance. It cracked on a root and the water splashed everywhere, over Ancelin’s legs and boots.

He cried out as if I’d struck him, looking in dismay at the puddle of water from the jug. I took my advantage and did strike him, shoving him hard with both hands. He stumbled back against the tree, and I kicked him as hard as I could, striking near his crotch. 

He screamed like a woman, then shouted something. Guards came running, and other people; a guard with a spear seized hold of me, a man much bigger and stronger than Ancelin, who now shook his fist and raved like the priest had done. My mother came, and more people, and I did not see why I was to blame if I struck back against someone who had injured me first, but no one listened. My mother wept loudly, a thing I had never heard her do, as I was tied to a pillar in the square, across from our beloved tree and near to the guardhouse, and flogged with a rope.

I had never known such terrible pain. My hands were bound over my head, and my feet bound together, and there was a rope around my middle. Then they tore open my blouse and beat me with the rope, which hurt so much that I screamed and screamed. It hurt to stand up, it hurt to sag down and pull on my bound hands, it hurt everywhere. And while my mother wept, Ancelin stood by, half-smiling, rubbing the place where I had kicked him. 

When it was over, they let my mother and some of the women wash the wounds and bandage them, but Ancelin would not allow the guards to release me. I hung there until the sun was high, and then two of the guards came and untied my hands and gave me water, and I pleaded with them to let me go. They begged my pardon and said they had orders from the lord’s son, meaning Ancelin, not to do that, but they tied my hands loosely at my sides, which was some relief. 

As the day wore on, I became sick and weary; I sagged in my bonds, weeping from time to time, but the guards did not come back. Once I woke from a dream of lying in the branches of our tree, high above the square, feeling safe, to see Ancelin smiling at me from not far away. 

My mouth was too dry to speak, to throw curses at him or ask him why he had hurt me so. Why, when he had weapons and wealth, his father’s name, those all-important male organs between his legs, did he fear and hate me, a woman, a bastard, an unacknowledged child? Why did he fear and hate the tree and the honor the women gave it?

He came and put his face close to mine. “How does it feel to know I can do anything I want with you? I can beat you, I can fuck you, I can have you tied up all day and whipped, and no one will care.”

“My father is your father,” I managed to say. “And my mother cares. Does your mother care for you?”

He hit me on the mouth so hard that my lip was cut and began to bleed. “You are the bastard child of a whore and you mean nothing in this world. When it’s dark tonight, you will still be here, and I am going to come back and fuck you till you bleed, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He showed me his teeth, then turned and walked away.

Later a guard did give me more water, and a piece of hard bread. I remember little more until I realized it was growing cool; the sun was setting, and I cringed in terror when I heard footsteps.

But it was not Ancelin. It was my mother. “Oh child, child.” She was weeping, which made me start to weep, yet her hands were not still. She cut my bonds and helped me to cross the square and sit below the tree. It murmured to me in the dimness just as my mother did.

She took off my ruined blouse and the dressings on my back, which made the stripes of flogging hurt all over again. Then she put on fresh dressings and helped me into a clean shirt and a jacket. She took off my skirt and made me put on breeches, like a man, and put stockings and boots on my feet while I watched, too weak to resist or question. Then she took my face between her hands.

“Listen to me, child. Your father was Marcel Marcoul, the lord of the manor, but your true father is the Forest God, the lord of the woods and all its creatures. Marcoul came to me in his place during a hard winter, when we needed more help than the Church could give. In your heart you belong to the forest--I should not have tried to keep you here so long.” She kissed me. “I should have done more to protect you from his wife’s son. But I will go to Marcel now as the guardian of the tree and tell him how you have been wronged, and you must go to your true father, to the lord of the wood.”

“How will I find him, mother?” I was weak and sick and felt I could barely walk as far as our house.

“Go to the town gate nearest here, which faces east. Turn left off the road when you have left the town and walk toward the woods. It is not far. Go into the woods with the intention to find your father, and I think that he will come to you.” She kissed me again and helped me to stand. Then she put a flagon of wine into my pocket, and a parcel of food into the other pocket, and carefully wrapped me in a heavy cloak. Finally, she took out a pair of shears and cut off most of my hair in a single snip, placing the hank of it in the crotch of the tree. She put a boy’s cap on my head and pulled up my hood.

“You should be able to slip out just before the gate closes. Fare well, and good luck, dear one.”

Sick and weak and shaky as I was, I knew not what to do except obey my mother. So I went as quickly as I could through the darkening streets, limping a little, and hiding behind a couple of oxen being driven out, I left the town for good.

Once the farmer with the oxen and his cart were well ahead of me, I turned off the road, heading north as my mother had said. The moon was rising now, golden and full, and its light on my face made me feel somewhat better.

The moon shone on my right, but there was a deep darkness ahead of me: the flank of the mountains, and the forest on its slopes. The further I went, the higher the moon rose, the cooler its light, and the greater the shadow of the forest ahead. I was weak, tired, sick with fear, fear of what was behind me in the town and what was ahead of me in the woods. When I reached the outskirts of the trees, I sank down on a stump and fumbled for the provisions my mother had given me. Some instinct made me pour out a few drops of wine and pinch a morsel of bread and of cheese to lay beside the stump. Once I had eaten and drunk, I did feel a little better, and the moon shone down into the forest now from on high, its beams like white fingers combing the branches of the trees.

I squared my shoulders under the heavy cloak and began to walk between the trees. I looked from side to side, wary of wolf or bear or imp, but soon it did not matter which way I looked; it was all a mass of indistinguishable shapes, grey on black, except if I looked up and saw the moonlight and the black branches of the trees, like strokes of ink upon a page. 

I could go no further; swaying with weariness, trembling with fear, I sank to my knees. “Father,” I said, barely audible to myself. “Father, father.” I had never known a father, never said the word to any man. “Father.” I put out my hands in front of me, into the darkness--to beckon someone closer, or to push something away? “Father. Father! Father!”

All things around me shook in a sudden wind. Along with the rustling of leaves and the creaking of the branches, there was a low, swelling noise, like the winding of a distant horn. With the noise came a flicker of gold at the edges of my vision, so strange that I thought I might be falling in a faint, and then the golden light opened in front of me like a door and I beheld--him.

He was dressed like a simple huntsman in a green jerkin and leather trews, with a belt round his hips. But he was taller than any man I had ever seen, and crowned with antlers to make any stag proud. His long, narrow feet were bare despite the season, and the hand he stretched out to me was long, narrow, and white. I took it, and raised my eyes to his face. He was smiling gently at me, his eyes green in the golden light, his brown hair and beard long like Jesus in the church windows.

“Child? Have you come looking for me?”

He drew me to my feet, taking hold of me when I wobbled. “Are you-- Are you my father? Are you the Forest God?”

He lifted my chin with one soft fingertip and gazed into my eyes, a slow searching look like the gaze of an animal. “I am the Lord of the Forest, yes. And I have had many children. Who is your mother? Come, sit with me, and tell me of yourself.”

In a moment, I know not how, we were seated in a little cottage, with benches by the fire and a table with two chairs. It was not unlike my home, although it had no windows, and other than the firelight, I saw no source of the golden brightness that illuminated every corner of the place. 

He bade me sit at the table and from a cupboard took out a jug and two cups. He poured out two cups of creamy frothing milk, then set down the jug and sat across from me. “Drink,” he said, smiling, and did so himself. The milk was rich as butter and as warm as if it had just been drawn into the pail.

Haltingly I told him of what had just happened, of my life before that, and of what my mother had told me of my conceiving. Throughout he looked on me and listened to me with silent care, as no man ever had. Even when he frowned as I told of the flogging and of how the lord Marcoul had gotten me on my mother, I did not fear him nor feel that his anger was for me.

When I finished my tale, he refilled my cup and then rose from the table. “May I see the marks on your back?”

I did not know what to say. “I… lord, father… must I undress?”

He tilted his head, seeming uncertain. “Take off your cloak, child, and let me just lift up your shirt, if you will.”

I took off my cloak and then my cap, too, as it was pleasantly warm in the cottage. The forest lord looked curiously at my cropped hair but said nothing, only came behind me and carefully lifted up my shirt.

I gasped with pain, for the shirt had stuck to bloody skin in some places. He made a low sound like a growl and ripped the shirt down the back, murmuring under his breath in a speech I did not understand.

“You were badly treated, child. But I can heal these wounds, if you will let me.”

“Please, lord.”  
He laid both hands on my back. They were cool, not warm, and with his fingers spread, seemed to cover the whole of my back, all the sore places. His hands grew cooler, and as they did so, the pain lessened, and my muscles relaxed. At last he sighed, and his hands grew suddenly warm before he took them away.

“There, child. I am sorry I ruined your shirt.” He picked up my cloak and draped it round me, covering skin that was no longer sore at all. Then he picked up the jug and poured something that was not milk into his own mug, drank it down, and poured it out again. 

I drank some more of the milk and realized I was trembling with hunger. He must have seen it, for he went to the cupboard again and brought out bread and cheese and raisins. 

We ate together in silence for a little while. Every time I dared to raise my eyes from my food, the forest lord--my father--was looking at me, watching me. When he saw me looking back, he smiled gently. No one had ever watched me in such fashion, or smiled at me so. I wondered if perhaps this was what having a father was like, or ought to be like.

At last he sighed, sweeping the crumbs on the table into one hand with the other and tossing them toward the fire. “What will you do now, child? What would you have me do for you? I can punish those who harmed you, or give you the power to punish them. Or whatever you please.”

I thought about this for a while, my hands pressed between my thighs. “I don’t want to go back, lord. I… I don’t think my mother expects me to come back. I don’t expect her to come looking for me, either. Is it possible that I could stay here, in the forest?” I was still too afraid to add, “With you.” 

He gazed at me with tilted head again, his hands spread flat upon the table. “Surely you may, but, child, you cannot live here as a human would. You are both too young and too old for that.” He shook his head. “In order for you to stay, I would have to make you part of the forest, as I am part of it.”

Again I thought, my mind moving slowly through his words. “What would that mean, father?”

He smiled. “Your spirit would be happy dwelling in the forest, I can see that. I can change your body to match your spirit, so that you may dwell here as an animal… or as a tree, something green and growing.”

To be a tree. I sat there, wearing boy’s clothes on my girl’s body, talking to a man who was not a man, a spirit in a human body with antlers on his head. To be a tree, to be rooted in the earth like the tree that had been a second mother to me. To lift branches to the sky and be intimate with sun and moon, wind and rain. To shelter birds and small beasts as the village tree had sheltered me. Never again to be vulnerable to Ancelin or the priest, to hunger or thirst or weariness. Not to think about whether I was a boy or a girl, never to fear marriage or childbearing. Simply to be. 

“You can do that?” I could barely speak above a whisper. “You could make me into a tree, truly?”

“Yes.” 

I covered my face with my hands for a moment, then stood up. “That is what I want.”

Smiling, the forest lord stood up and took my hand. “Come, then.” 

We walked outside into the wood. I saw that the moon was far west now, and the faintest glimmer of red lay on the silhouette of the mountains to the east; sunrise would not be far away. Hand in hand we walked, my father leading me, to a small clearing where a narrow stream trickled down a bank and away.

“Lay aside your clothes, child, and I must lay aside mine, too. Do not be afraid.”

He stepped back from me and shook himself, as a wet dog does. His clothing vanished, and a golden light shone about him again. I could see clearly everything around me; I could see that he now had the form of a deer in his lower body, hooves and tail and a member half-hidden like a deer’s.

Rather than being afraid, the sight of him made me feel braver than I had ever been. I stripped off all my clothes with an eagerness that made him laugh, until I was naked as when I was born. He took me by the shoulders, then, and moved me to stand in a certain place. 

“Here, just here.”

He cupped my face in his long white hands and tilted my chin to look up at him. He was even taller now that he stood on a deer’s legs. He smiled, kindly, the only father I had ever known, and looked deep into my eyes with eyes as green as moss, as leaves, as life.

“I give you now what you have always wanted: Roots for feet, branches for arms, bark on your trunk, leaves that are eyes and ears and hair….” His voice tolled like the bell of the church. “You are my child, the child of the forest, a spirit of the trees.”

His lips touched my forehead, and that was the last moment of my human form. I became, I was, as if I had always been, as I am now: a tree of the wood, rooted in the earth yet turning to the sun as it rose, drinking the rising light, and the hands on my bark that blessed me were still those of my father, the Forest God.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [rembrandtswife](http://rembrandtswife.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, and [palaceofobsessions](http://palaceofobsessions) is my sideblog of Hozier love.


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